I had a lot of other ideas for the title of this post. Dog Vomit. Vomitous. Dogs are stupid (not in a pejoritave sense). So much vomit, so little time.
I have been laying in bed for about a half an hour and all I can do is think of things I want to write in my blog about dog vomit. Maybe there is a huge, undiscovered market out there for musings on dog puke.
I woke up at about 3:30 a.m. to the sounds of our sweet dog, Zoey, retching. This is never good. Sometimes she retches enough in advance that one of us jumps out of bed yelling verbal cues and we succeed in getting her to make a vomitous puddle outside. Mostly, we're not so lucky. This morning I woke up to three distinct vomit puddles in our bedroom: one on the duvet (freshly washed yesterday, thank you), one at the base of the bed on my side, and one randomly placed puddle again on my side of the bed.
Dogs can do some amazing things and they are great companions, but they can be incredibly stupid. I know by looking at her that Zoe feels very sick right now, but what do you expect when you act the part of a living trash compactor? I wish I could say that this has never happened before, but that would be a lie. And if that were true, my vomit removal system would not be nearly as fine-tuned as it is. Stupid dog.
We had Zoe for about 7 years before Lucy, and there is a distinct difference (may my words never come back to haunt me), between dogs and kids. Lucy has thrown up. Zoey has thrown up. Lucy, on one hand has never gone around intentionally ingesting completely indigestible stuff. Wait a minute. Okay, lose the comparison--while Lucy has never been one to eat weird stuff (really, I'm telling the truth), I'm not ruling out the chance that we may someday have a child who does. It's in the genes.
So there I am, it's 3:30 am. There are three largish puddles of puke in our bedroom.
Let me suggest to you that one litmus test among many for a relationship is to arrange for large amounts of vomit to be distributed liberally around a shared bedroom at crazy hours. Arrange for it to be a surprise, if you like.
I only raised my voice twice. What do you think? Is that good?
The first time was when I was scooping up the puke and Brian said to me, his voice all muzzy from sleep, "Did Zoe get out yesterday or anything?" Harmless question.
Answers the dragon-lady, "Only when YOU let her out when you were outside!!! (Roaaar!)" I did not raise my voice when I said, "I honestly can't understand why you don't get it that she cannot go roaming around." It was under my breath. Brian might've heard it, though.
The second time I raised my voice was when we were back in bed, trying to ignore the distinct odor of vomit that permeates the room (still), and Zoey started retching again. I think I said, "ZOE! OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!!!" And that was more in panic than anger. We did make it outside in time, but Zoe started to head next door where they are building the house and where dozens of malicious construction workers, apparently, have stashed copious amounts of trash that our dog thinks is edible in order to thwart me. I called Zoe back, but...unchecked, I would bet that she would eat the same pile of junk that she just puked up.
Someone remind me to get an electric fence, please.
Can a dog help it if she wants to eat everything that smells like it has any caloric value whatsoever? I submit to you, the dog cannot. Can a dog help it if next door (next door, for crying out loud!) there is a virtual trove of old (read:aged to perfection) junque food left by construction workers? A dog cannot.
A dog that would pass up a chance to swallow pieces of ham, mushrooms, sausage, napkins, paper cups, cigarettes, hamburger wrappers and remains, and onions (think that might have been onions), is not a dog. A dog is only a dog, ladies and gentleman. A dog cannot make the logical leap to associate early-morning puke madness with the trash smorgasborg that the dog is presented with in the moment.
Remind me, somebody, to get an electric fence.
Brian removed the duvet cover from the duvet and put the cover in the washer. He also piled up the duvet by the laundry room for washing. I tried to get him to go back to bed, (third time I raised my voice, but I was only raising it so he could hear me from the other room) but he wouldn't. I am not always against having help dealing with spontaneous puke in our bedroom, but he stayed up late and did laundry while I was sleeping last night.
Speaking of which...It's time for the truth to out. For all the women out there who think I have the perfect husband, I am about to disclose some saddening news. Brian is guilty of committing willful acts of laundry.
I'm going to interrupt this interruption to bring you fascinated readers a real-time update:
I just let Zoey out again (this time to eliminate from her other orifice, which must be a nice change for her), and she is now sitting at my feet. She is a sweet dog, and I feel bad that she is sick, and ho-ly cow, she stinks.
Back to Brian's civil disobedience. Despite a number of talks I have had with Brian, he continues to act in blatant disregard of my wishes. He does the laundry. Not only his laundry, but Lucy's and mine along with his! I tried to explain to him that, mostly because he has a job that he actually has to travel to five days a week, and because I consider our home (and maintenance of said home, including laundry) to be my job, well...he should not be doing my job. I explained that it was not only making me feel guilty, but that some people could find this annoying and even insulting. I tried this line of reasoning on him:
Would you like me to go to work and start doing take-offs for you???
Pretty good, huh? (I have a vague idea about what might be involved in doing a "take-off," but only vague and only about what might be involved.) Brian is an Estimator/Project Manager for an Excavating company. On his card, it's in italics, so I guess that would be an Estimator/Project Manager. A minor difference, but a difference all the same, wouldn't you agree?
I think that our little talk might've made a difference. Mostly it made me aware of how much I want to do the laundry, as strange as that may seem. As a result, I have more frequent outbursts of laundering competence. Right now our laundry room is stuffed to the brim because I've lined up all the rugs and linens along with a considerable amount of regular laundry. I didn't realize until yesterday that Brian was actually out of clean underwear. I guess sometimes a guy just has to take matters into his own hands.
Another change since that latest of laundry talks is that I try to appreciate the fact that Brian does laundry more. I know a lot of women who would LOVE it if anyone in the family would even think about putting a load of whites into the washer.
I just took pictures of the sick, bleary-eyed dog and myself (point and shoot computer). They're separate pictures because Zoe is still smelling horrendous.
